Introduction

When you need to get CloudWatch metrics graph images, the AWS CLI's get-metric-widget-image command is very convenient.

Example 

~ $ aws cloudwatch get-metric-widget-image \ --metric-widget '{ "view": "timeSeries", "stacked": false, "metrics": [ [ "AWS/S3", "BucketSizeBytes", "BucketName", "xxx", "StorageType", "StandardStorage", { "period": 86400, "id": "m1" } ] ], "width": 1742, "height": 260, "start": "-PT336H", "end": "P0D" }' \ --output-format png \ --output text | base64 --decode > image.png

Running this command will save the metrics image as image.png.

Generated Image Example

image (1).png

How to Check the metric-widget JSON

You can verify the target metrics' JSON configuration by clicking on the "Source" tab when viewing the graph.
This JSON can be used directly as a command argument.

image.png

Summary

While it might seem like a minor tip, it's actually quite useful! Try automating it with the CLI instead of manually taking screenshots.